Annual Research Day 2014

19 Jun 2014

The College of Medicine and Health, in conjunction with the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, annual Research day was held on Wednesday 18th June 2014 at the Western Gateway Building. The theme of this year’s conference was – Food, Microbes and Molecular Medicine.

The conference was opened by Prof. John Higgins, Head of College of Medicine and Health and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, followed by an introduction from Prof. Gerald Fitzgerald, Professor and Chair of the School of Microbiology and Assistant Director of the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre.

The theme for the morning session was ‘Superbugs and Infection’. The keynote speech was given by Dr. Mary Rea, Senior Research Officer at Teagasc Food Research Centre in Moorepark and Funded Investigator of the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre. Other speakers included Nina Konstantinidou (Microbiology UCC), Des Field (Microbiology UCC) and Mike Harrison (CUH).

The second session focused on ‘Food and Medicine’ with Prof. Paul Ross, Head of Food Research at Teagasc, Research Professor at UCC, and Principal Investigator in the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre as the keynote speaker. Other speakers were Ruairí Robertson (Teagasc, Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre), Aine Fanning (Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre) and James Nolan (Microbiology UCC).

The theme of the afternoon session was ‘Extremes of Life’. The keynote speaker for this session was Prof. Paul O’Toole, Professor of Microbial Genomics, UCC School of Microbiology, Principal Investigator in the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre. Other speakers were – Claire Watkins (Teagasc, Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre), Orla Collins (Food Business and Development, UCC) and Maria Donovan (School of Pharmacy/Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience/APC associated).

Following the oral presentations in all three areas, the best speaker in each area was awarded the Michael C Berndt Gold Medal for research in each category. Congratulations to Mike Harrison, Ruairí Robertson and Maria Donovan, who each received their own Gold Medal.

There was also a moderated poster session at lunchtime with 53 posters, and three awards were distributed for best poster at the Prize giving. Congratulations Guillaume Barrel for winning first prize with his poster titled ‘Metabolism and health correlation of Methanomassiliicoccales methanogens (“Mx”) in the gut microbiota of older people’, Jacklyn McCarthy who came second with ‘Risk factors associated with suicide between men under 40 years v. those who are older’ and Karen McCarthy who came third with ‘Evaluation of a novel Biological Phosphorus Removal Process for Hyperphosphataemia of Renal Failure’.

Thank you to Dr. Roy Sleator (CIT/APC), Dr. Dervla O’Malley (Physiology, UCC/Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre) and Prof. Geraldine Boylan (Paediatrics & Child Health, UCC, INFANT) for chairing the sessions.